Six Ways ERP Software Will Make Your Employees Happier

As the leader of a growing company, you probably know that you need to replace your QuickBooks or Peachtree accounting system with a true ERP system. But the investment of time and money that you and the entire organization will need to make feels overwhelming. Your team already does more than ever, and asking them to add to the workload by making the switch to ERP is tough. Right?

Actually, you might be surprised at how happy your team would be to support the implementation of an ERP system. They most likely would be glad to take on the short-term extra work of a conversion, because they know how much time they are currently wasting on:

1. Keeping spreadsheets straight. How many separate spreadsheets does each department keep to track assets, special orders, timesheets, backorders, or budgets? Without an ERP system that can support the different business processes of each department, lost and wrong-version spreadsheets keep your employees working late.
2. Printing paper packing slips. The warehouse receives a stack of paper to pack and ship yesterday’s orders. That system works great, until someone spills coffee on the stack or they get dropped and one (maybe your biggest customer’s) falls under the desk and out of sight.
3. Finding current contact information. In how many places such as Outlook, spreadsheets, and QuickBooks do you have the contact information for each of your customers – and is it updated in all those places? Does your service desk rep have to ask a lot of questions when a repeat customer calls to place a service order? Centralized contact information saves employees time and makes customers happy.
4. Searching for project information. Can your employees answer a quick question about the project status or budget when the customer calls while on their way into a big meeting? An ERP system can centralize not only the project time and billing, but store version-controlled documents that are always one mouse-click away.
5. Looking for a customer’s latest order. How long does it take a sales rep to find the latest customer order? Do they have access to the system to find it themselves, or do they have a paper file and have to walk down the hall to accounting to ask for a copy? Customers these days expect speed. They want your employees to have immediate access to the information they need to do their job quickly and smoothly.
6. Entering data twice. Nothing slows down progress like having to enter the same data into multiple systems – and it’s especially painful when employees have to stay late on the last day of every month to make sure all entries are completed.

Isn’t it time for you to take a fresh look at your organization’s productivity? Think how much smarter your employees could work if they had access to centralized information, interdepartmental workflows, and shared documents. Take a new look at switching to an ERP system that will fuel your company’s growth.